No. 25 Ole Miss Rebels take command in second half to beat Texas

AUSTIN, Texas. – Apparently, all this Ole Miss football team needs is a halftime break, some Gatorade and a chalkboard for corrections.

Just like their season-opening win over Vanderbilt when the Rebels saw a 10-point first quarter lead become an 11-point halftime deficit before minor adjustments led to a furious comeback, 25th-ranked Ole Miss followed the same formula here Saturday night against Texas in Memorial Stadium.

The Rebels jumped to an early 14-0 lead and then allowed 23 straight points, before reeling off 30 consecutive points themselves including 20 in the third quarter for a 44-23 victory over the Longhorns.

Trailing Texas (1-2) 23-17 at halftime after the Longhorns scored two touchdowns and three field goals in their final five first-half possessions, Ole Miss' third quarter scoring explosion was capped by Jeff Scott's 73-yard TD punt return.

"We came in at halftime, and said we'd been here before just two weeks ago," said Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace, who was almost flawless throwing for 177 yards and two TDs, and running for 57 yards and the Rebels' go-ahead TD at 24-23 with 7:49 left in the third quarter. "We have a lot of guys who are used to having their backs against the wall."

The victory for the unbeaten Rebels avenged last season's 66-31 beatdown by Texas in Oxford. It was also Ole Miss' first regular season non-conference win over a team from a BCS league since it beat Arkansas of the Southwest Conference in 1991 the year before the Hogs joined the SEC. Ole Miss is off to its first 3-0 start since 1989 and has a five-game win streak.

If the Longhorns were hurting from last week's 40-21 loss at Brigham Young – they gave up 550 yards rushing and fired defensive coordinator Manny Diaz – they had to be absolutely devastated by Ole Miss' finishing kick.

In the second half when Texas failed to score, Ole Miss outgained Texas 242-100, finishing with a 449-320 yard domination in total offense.

"We made one defensive adjustment at the half to stop their zone plays that they bounced out the backside," Rebels' second-year coach Hugh Freeze said. "We said, `Hey, I know we're young, let's go out and see if our kids can play our base defense and compete. And we're a pretty good offensive football team when we win first down."

Wallace made superb decisions in Ole Miss' read-option attack, making the correct reads springing running back Scott for 164 rushing yards on 19 carries. Freeze had been sweating all week whether Texas would make wholesale defensive changes since it replaced Diaz last with Greg Robinson.

Embattled Texas coach Mack Brown, who's 24-18 since playing Alabama for the 2009 BCS national championship, said his team has nothing left to play for but the Big 12 title.

"I thought we were ready to go to start the game," Brown said, "but I don't know why we're playing so inconsistent.

"After the first drive of the second half, we were just inept offensively. Ole Miss didn't change anything offensively in the second half – just handed to No. 3 (Scott) on the speed sweep and used play action off it."

Wallace got the Rebels off to a 14-0 lead. The Ole Miss offense made it look easy on its first two possessions of the night, driving 75 and 57 yards for a Scott 5-yard TD run and an 18-yard Wallace to Donte Moncrief scoring strike.

At that point, with the game just 7:31 old, Wallace was 6-for-7 for 69 yards, and Ole Miss had a 9-0 domination in first downs and 132 to minus 3 walkover in total offense yardage.

The Longhorns seemed on the edge of being put out to pasture when they scored on all remaining possessions of the first half.

The power running of Johnathan Gray and the deft passing of Case McCoy, who exploited the Rebels' shaky cornerbacks, resulted in a McCoy TD pass, a Gray 8-yard scoring sweep and Anthony Fera field goals of 28, 30, and 47 yards.

Even after all that, Ole Miss re-gained a sliver of momentum. Rebels' placekicker Andrew Ritter nailed a career-long 52-yard field goal as the half ended to make it a one-possession lead for Texas.

Little did the Longhorns know that Ritter just lit his teammates' fuses.

Texas' longest possession of the second half was its 41-yard march to open the half. It ended with a punt.

"We kind of got after him (Texas QB McCoy) a little bit that second half," Ole Miss defensive end C.J. Johnson said. "We called a few more blitzes and we were able to get after it a bit."

When former Ridgeway star running back Jaylen Walton scored on an 8-yard run with 8:42 left to play to give the Rebels their final 21-point victory margin, most of the disappointed burnt orange-clad Texas fans in the crowd of 101,474 began filing out.

Over on the Ole Miss sideline as Freeze began emptying his bench, Wallace started dreaming big since the Rebels have an open date this week before playing at No. 1 Alabama on Sept. 28.

"To start out 3-0, seven, eight wins isn't good enough for us (this season)," Wallace said. "We're talented enough to win more games than that."